UCLA Film & Television Archive’s engagement with Iranian cinema is a matter of tradition and conviction. Over more than a century, Iran’s cinema has tracked momentous upheavals in that nation’s political structure, revealing crucial cultural information and maintaining dialogue with other populations, enjoying moments of critical focus and praise along the way. Across such varied historical periods, Iranian film has remained fascinating in its varied responses to tensions between tradition and modernity, the complicated social roles assigned to and assumed by women, and oscillations between public and private ideas of virtue, among other themes and formal achievements that have fuelled a rich and diverse storytelling tradition.

In a time when Iran’s cinema faces increased domestic pressures, including the censure and arrest of filmmakers, the Archive is proud to continue its exploration of Iran’s cinema, offering revelatory contemporary films and historical works of special interest. This year, we are pleased to extend a welcome to filmmaker Parviz Sayyad, a key figure of pre-revolutionary Iranian cinema (as writer, actor, producer and director), currently active internationally in the theater, who also directed fascinating films as an expatriate in the United States, where he now resides.